Parts of a Whole
by Jebediah Sprinklefield
Summary: A series of plots and discontinue stories from my notebook. Please R&R!
1. Mayi'ana

Ok, this is going to be a series of the stories and plots I never got around to posting or finished. If there is one of them tat takes your fancy at any point in time just let me know and I'll try and get the full story written for you, how does that sound? Please R&R, feedback is fuel for the flame and I'd just love to have a bonfire.

0o0o0o0o0

"You're good to go," Dr Weir anounced from the control room as the expedition's flagship team stood before the now active gate, "and try not to get yourselves hurt."

SGASGASGASGASGA

John and the team approached the edge of a village, not far from the Stargate. There appeared to be some commotion in the town center, but apart from that all the windows and doors of the huts were tightly shut. The team soon found out why.

In the small town square were three men, in Genii military uniforms. They seemed to be laughing about something, all their attention focussed on something between them.

"Stupid wench," Sheppard heard one of them mutter. Then he saw what they were laughing and muttering about. Between them was a whimpering pile rags, a person.

The Colonel gave a quick hand signal and the team surrounded the men who were still completely oblivious of anyone else being in the square. A quick hit was all it took to knock them all unconcious.

John looked at the person the Genii had been terrorizing. It was a young woman, not very old, probably in her mid to late teens he guessed. She was pretty beat up and unconcious.

"Oh my," Teyla whispered almost disbelievingly, bending down to tend to the girl. "She seems to be fairly badly injured," the Athosian anounced, looking up as people started coming out of the houses to see what was going on.

John turned to address one of the approaching locals who was looking very nervous,

"Don't mean to sound rude or anything, but what exactly did she do to get that?"

"Many years ago we began trading with the Genii, but they have been getting steadily less fair in their trades until not long ago when they simply stopped offering anything at all and now they simply take what they want by force if we do not give it to them," an young man in his mid twenties explained,"she spoke out against them when they came today. There was a culling just months ago and we have no food to spare."

"Colonel Sheppard, this girl needs a doctor."

The young man gave the injured girl a quick look-over, "I am the town healer, all the others were culled. I'm sorry but we don't have the resources to deal with those wounds at the moment," he said, staring sadly at the ground," we knew as soon as the Genii grabbed her there was nothing we could do."

"We have a good supply of medical equipment where we come from, ir you agree then we could go arrange to have someone look at her," Sheppard offered, taking pity on the poor injured girl.

"Could...could you take her with you? To get medical treatment?" the young man asked.

John considered for a minute.

"McKay and Ronon, could you please go dial the gate and let Dr Beckett we're bringing an injured extra home with us. Teyla, could you help me carry her?" John ordered, then turned to the young man who seemed appeared to now be the town's representative,

" we'll be back just as soon as we can let you know how she's going. And you might want to do something about those three, they aren't going to stay unconcious forever," he dipped his head towards the three fallen Genii as he lifted one of the girl's limp arms over his shoulder and Teyla took her other side.

SGASGASGASGASGA

"How's she doing?" the Colonel asked Beckett about an hour after they had arrived back at Atlantis.

"She has a few broken ribs, a punctured lung and a broken arm, but apart from that it's mostly bruises. She seems to be healing a lot quicker than I would have expected. I'll have the results of her blood test soon and I can let you know if there's anything interesting."

SGASGASGASGASGA

It had been just under a day since they had brought the girl back when Beckett finished analysing the blood samples, by which time John and the team had been back and sorted out everything with the girl's village.

John was checking in on the progress of his latest stray when she started to come round.

She opened her eyes slowly, remarkably the black eye she had had was already healed.

"Who are you?" she asked when she spotted John. She had no idea where she was or how she got there, the last thing she remembered was some people she didn't know, including the man she was talking to, knock out her attackers.

"I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. How you feeling? You took a fair beating from those Genii."

"To be honest, my head is pounding, but I'll survive," she grinned grimly. She had no idea why, but she felt she could trust this man. "My name is Mayi'ana. People mostly call me Maya for short though."

"Nice to meet you Maya," John grinned.

SGASGASGASGASGA

Two days after she arrived Mayi'ana was already ably to sit up without wincing from her broken ribs. Her extremely quick healing rate intrigued Carson.

"Do all people heal this fast where you come from, lass?" he asked her.

"No," she said, not willing to meet his eyes, "I'm...different."

"How so?"

"I just am," Mara replied with a note of finality, obviously it was not a topic she wished to discuss. Beckett took the hint and busied himself elsewhere.

John had a bit of spare time and decided to visit the infirmary and check in on Mara.

"How's she doing?" he asked Dr Beckett when he entered.

"She's doing extremely well," Carson informed Sheppard, "she has an extremely fast healing rate. When I asked her if everyone healed as quickly as she did she told me that she was different from them. She wouldn't give me any more than that. Maybe you could try to get a bit out of her, she seems to trust you."

Sheppard nodded, walking over to Mayi'ana's bed.

"How you doing, kiddo? You look a lot better today."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," Mara informed him, smiling, "but I am feeling better, thankyou."

"Good to hear it. Your people are happy you are making a fast recovery."

Mara looked down and started fidgeting her fingers.

"Colonel...I know there's not much of a chance of this I know, but would you consider letting me stay with here when I heal? I would earn my keep and I would find a way to pay you for your kindness in healing me..."

"Why don't you want to go home?" John asked.

"To be honest, I've never really been at home there. I've lived there since my mother was killed by Wraith when I was nine. That was ten years ago now, but I never managed to settle in...This place feels more like home than back there ever did..." Mara looked up to him with her piercing blue eyes and he felt them boring into him.

"If you really wanted I could talk to Dr Weir about it," he conceded.

Mayi'ana leaned forward and hugged him, suppressing a wince as she hit one of her injured ribs.

"Thankyou so much! I wish there was something I could do to repay you." she sat back, looking down for a second as though she was making a very rough decision, "Dr Beckett wanted to know why I healed so quickly. It's because I'm not from Tollana. I'm Alterian."

SGASGASGASGASGA

"That name sounds kinda familiar..." John mused, "And as for repayment, consider just gracing us with your presence repayment enough."

She offered him a crooked grin, "Once I get outta the infirmary, how about a tour of the place?"

"Yeah sure," John grinned back as he stood to go, "I think you'll like it here. Mind you I still have to ask Weir, but I can be charming when I want to be," he winked.

"I'm sure you can."

SGASGASGASGASGA

Sheppard told Beckett about what he had been told. McKay, who happened to be nearby, heard a bit of their conversation.

"What was that Colonel?" he asked," I couldn't help but notice you saying the word 'Alterian'."

"So?" John and Carson said at once.

"During last week's monthly check-in with Earth Dr Daniel Jackson mentioned they found out a bit about the Ancients. One of the things they found was that the Ancients were known, in their day, as the Alterians. Now mind letting me in on your little secret, I think I should get that much for telling you guys about Alterians," McKay said.

"I'm sorry, but this is strictly confidential. Doctor - patient only I'm afraid, lad," the Doctor said before John got a chance to snap at Rodney to mind his own business.

"Didn't sound very medical to me. What can Alterians have anything to do with medicine, hmm?"

"For all you know, a lot. Besides, if anything we were talking about didn't sound medical, maybe you shouldn't have been listening to a private conversation," the Colonel answered, turning his back to Rodney as a way of ending the conversation.

0o0o0o0o0

What do you think? Should I continue? Please R&R!


	2. Lost in Translation

Colonel Sheppard strutted nonchalantly into McKay's lab, his expression one of extreme boredom.

"Hey McKay," John said dryly, "Heard you were doing stuff and I'm bored so I thought I'd drop in, so to speak."

McKay looked up from his work, a little annoyed,

"What, does my lab look like an amusement park to you," then he realised what he was saying,

"Whoa, you must be _really _bored if you decided to come here for fun."

"_Extremely _bored. Haven't been off-world in three days and we aren't scheduled for another week yet. I pity those poor souls who _never_ go off-world."

"Believe it or not, Colonel, some people _do_ like it here."

"So, got anything interesting I can do? Things to test?"

Sheppard raised his eyebrows, almost with a look of anticipation.

"Not really, there's just this one devise Zelenka found yesterday in one of the lower levels, still haven't completely finished cleaning up from the hurricanes. But anyway, it looks pretty interesting but I haven't had a chance to translate the test yet."

John look at the small object Rodney had indicated. It was a silver and blue box, lit from the inside. It was hard to describe. Shiny, yet dim, transparent yet opaque. Even to himself John had trouble describing the thing.

A memory flickered in the back of his mind at the sight, too brief for him to grab on to. The flicker of his own recognition intrigued him. It was like he knew, but didn't know. It was like something made almost perfect sense. _Almost. _

"Mind if I take a look at it?" Sheppard asked, needing both something to break the boredom and to satisfy his curiosity as to why he felt he knew something he was sure he didn't - or shouldn't - know.

"Yeah sure," McKay replied, only looking up from his work for a second, "knock yourself out. Not literally, though."

John reached out to pick up the strange item, then hesitated, instead picking it up with a cloth from nearby.

McKay looked up, noticing the strangely cautious action. John Sheppard was not a generally cautious person.

"What, you afraid to touch it?" Rodney said, with more than a hint of sarcasm.

"Strangely so," John muttered in reply, ignoring the sarcasm that dripped from the words and instead focusing all his attention on the item in hand.

"You said there text or something with this thing?"

"Like I said before, I haven't gotten around to translating it yet."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, can I just look at it anyways?" the Colonel asked, still giving the thing his full attention.

"What, you think you can read Ancient now?" the scientist mocked, putting his work aside. He needed a break anyway, and it was quite amusing to see John's new-found interest in science. He pulled up a file on his laptop and put it on the display.

It was about two paragraphs or so long, written in that impervious, almost Latin language of the Ancients, with a little bit of file corruption at the end.

John looked at it, murmuring under his breath for a moment until he was pretty sure he had found whatever it was he was looking for, but McKay could only speculate on the goings on in Sheppard's head. He put the device back in its tray with the cloth and cleared his throat.

"Experiment 144 - Dream Catcher," he announced to Rodney, "This experiment was designed to capture singular thoughts and store them for automatic playback at the user's own discretion. In times such as these it is pressing that not a single thought be overlooked lest it be the key to destroying the Wraith.

Many are beginning to despair and I fear I find myself agreeing with them. It very well may be futile to hope for the defeat of the Wraith, there has even been talk in recent months of leaving Atlantis. The war has been raging for almost a hundred years now and one way or another it will soon be coming to an end.

Well, back to the experiment...The rest looks corrupt..."

"And what was that?" McKay queried, quite unimpressed.

"I dunno, I was just reading it."

"Oh right, so you can read Ancient now then?"

"I was just...dunno...saying what it looks like it says," John tried to explain, but he knew it was a pitiful attempt to explain his gut instinct as to what the words were.

"So you were just making it up as you went along then?"

"I dunno," John shrugged, turning his back to Rodney and slinking back out into the corridor, his bored expression back in place and muttering something about 'a whole damn week to go', or something like that, McKay didn't really care.

SGASGASGASGASGA

**A few days later... **

McKay finally caught up with his target, panting.

"Colonel Sheppard," he said, tapping the Colonel on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Yeah?" John asked, turning to face Rodney. Damn. He had been taking a nice slow stroll around Atlantis. His stroll, he supposed, that was now over.

"Hod you know?" McKay demanded. Sheppard just rolled his eyes.

"How did I know _what_, Rodney? I'm a Lieutenant Colonel, not a mind reader," he remarked dryly.

"About the…the thing. You know. Experiment Dream Catcher," Sheppard just raised an eyebrow, "oh come on, the text you translated yesterday!"

"What about it?"

"Your translation was exact. How did you know what it said?"

SGASGASGASGASGA


End file.
